Dr. Dienstag is the Carl W. Walter Professor of Medicine and the Dean for Medical Education at Harvard Medical School and Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. His major research interests are hepatitis virology, epidemiology, and antiviral therapy.

Dr. Dienstag received his A.B. degree from Columbia College magna cum laude in 1968 and his M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1972. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Billings Hospital of the University of Chicago, a research associateship at the National Institutes of Health (Hepatitis Virus Section, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, NIAID), and his research and clinical fellowships in medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He is board certified in Internal Medicine.

Dr. Dienstag has published widely on viral hepatitis. He serves on numerous scientific advisory boards and editorial boards. He is one of the Principal Investigators of the national Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment Against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) Trial designed to assess the potential role for chronic therapy in patients with hepatitis C who had failed prior therapy.